Hello!

Me first post. So, I've been customising my laptop like it's going out of style & lovin' evey minute of it. I've finally found THE theme that I want to keep for a while & it is MrBiotech's Dominant Negative theme. It's crazy alien & I love every aspect of it 'specially that it comes as a suite.

Gots some questions though. I keep a rather busy schedule & I really like the interface of rainlendar & the skin this suite comes with. I was wondering how come the events box doesnt get skinned along with everything else? Is there a way around this where I can have the events pafe be skinned like the todo ist?

Also, I just bought Ashton Shell after a lengthy trial, particularly because I found this theme, and I was having troube with the top panel and adding stuff to it. I posted on the as forums & they recommended that I switch over to the new panel. I did but am having troube getting it to look like the toppanel version of the skin. Any thoughts? The application header shows up below the 'icon' that it normally in top panel appeared over it. Are there any plans to skin the new panel?

Also, I got the sysmetrix app because the theme has askin for it. But the skin is kinda hard to read. Any chance of expanding the sysmetrix skin to be larger & include more of what the app has to offer (i.e. vol conrol, weather, etc...)?

Final question, I swear! Where can I get the skin for altdesk? I'm using another skin of yours but I'd like one to match.

Hi Rooster,

Glad you've stepped into the AstonShell community; they're a great bunch

On to your questions...

DominantNegative Rainlendar:  This skin was published a while back and Rainlendar has been upgraded several times since then.  While putting together the Autoclave Rainlendar skin I discovered that the latest version "undoes" portions of older themes.  It will require a little bit of retooling to get the events box skinned, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

Top Panel in AstonShell:  To get the Panel plugin graphics converted to convenient use in the TopPanel plugin will also require some work.  The problem is I've switched to a Mac  - running smaller programs like AltDesk, Sysmetrix, or Rainlendar works okay under VirtualPC on a G4-based Mac.  AstonShell, however, does not.  In order for me to tackle this problem I'm gonna have to borrow a neighbor's computer, or possibly one at work in my lab.  So, this one's gonna take me a bit of time to figure out, due to technical concerns.

SysMetrix:  Sysmetrix has also been through several significant upgrades since I published the skin for the suite.  It now provides some interesting window-like functionality that could easily be used to provide the additional info you're looking for.  That will, understandably, require some work.  I'll get cracking on it ASAP.

AltDesk Skin:  The AltDesk skin should be included in the zip file for the theme in a folder called "A1".  I haven't tested it with the latest AltDesk, although it may still work.

In short?  I'm firing up Photoshop now to get crackin on the Rainlendar and Sysmetrix issues.  Conservatively, give me about two weeks to have a finalized solution, although it's possible I can advance on 'em earlier, schedule permitting.

Wow! Thanks so much! I really appreciate your art & your willingness to hook a sister up here!
Many, many thanks & I look forward to seeing whatcha come up with. I'm sure I'll love it!

peace
rooster

Rooster,

I've attached a zip of the updated DominantNegative theme for AstonShell 1.92.  It includes updates to the menu, the inclusion of DiskEX, and the AltDesk skin in addition to skinning the Panel plugin with what used to be the TopPanel skin.

I'm new to the new Aston Theme-Maker, and quite unclear how to create a theme will work under multiple resolutions (something I hope they make easier in the future).  This theme was saved at 1280x1024 resolution.  If used at other resolutions it may do "funny" things to the desktop.  If you prefer to use another resolution, notify me by reply and we'll adapt accordingly.

I've also got an updated DominantNegative for Rainlendar for you, which I'll post here shortly.

Enjoy

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...and here's the updated DominantNegative Rainlendar skin:


Updates include:

• Events list now skinned.
• Events list and To-do list now include labels to know which is which.
• Events list and To-do list now have close buttons.
• Events list and To-do list toggles now added to the main calendar.

enjoy!

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wow! You are incredible! I was not expecting this so soon! Yo RAWK! Thank you so so much!

I am using 1280x800. Man, gonna dlaod your files & start playin'!

Thank you so much again! Looking forward to the rest!

peace
rooster!

Good evening! (Atleast on this side of the world  )
I love this theme to death, the Aston theme words wonderfully for me, yet, for some strange reason, The rainlender skin still won't work. All that shows up is my To-Do List, nothing else. Is there a way I can fix it?
Thank you for your time 

Blessed be,
Suki

Hello, we've got a Wiccan onsite  Blessed Be Suki.

It's probably because this an old Rainlendar skin and isn't fully compatible with the new .r2skin ( xml ) format. I'm not going to be much use to you because I haven't used Rainy for years, but I'm sure Richard will be able to advise you when he sees your post.

Why thank you Mickeblue, merry meet.
Yep, I'm wiccan in a sense, If catagorized though I would be considered Celtic druid.
I just recently found out about RL, hahha, I thought it was something new, not an older prog.... I feel some what out of the loop now. O.o

It's been around for years Suki... version 2.02 now. You could alway try this... go to this page ~ http://www.pctipp.ch/library/actions/pre_download.asp?id=7729 ~ and click on the link that says 'Zuruck zum letzten Download'.

Uninstall your current version of Rainlender and install the downloaded earlier version, making sure that you save a copy of the Dom-Neg skin to place in the new skins folder. Then fire up and change the skin... it works OK with version 0.22.1



Celtic eh? You might like this wallpaper that I based on a Jellinge design ~ http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?skins=39809

Thanks for fielding the answer on that one, Mickeblue

It's true, DominantNegative is aging.  The Rainmeter and Rainlendar skins are getting outdated pretty quickly.

Once I've updated the Singularity suite I'm gonna have to make a pass through all my old Rainlendar and Rainmeter skins (okay, toss in Sysmetrix, too) and update 'em to the latest.  Rainy's stuff keeps changing so fast it's hard to keep pace

So, does that leave any time for creating new awesome themes, or are you going to be stuck updating stuff for the rest of your life? 

I wish!!!

Kinduv sucks, when one of your theme goes platinum (DominantNegative's downloads, on various sites, has well over 30,000 downloads) you'll get nothing but requests for "can I port it to this?" or "are you gonna make it for this?" or "are you gonna add this feature?".  It's a good kinduv hurt: you know you're appreciated. 
Funny how things can turn out... you want people to enjoy your themes, but once they do, it's a whole different headache.

Maintenance is the current problem.  Both for skins and the sites.  Rainlendar has come up with updates so fast that it's literally gone through probably about 30-40 minor and major updates since I made most of my skins for it several years back.  Sysmetrix and LiteStep have likewise changed significantly.  Sysmetrix has expanded to be just about a complete widget solution in-and-of-itself.  I skinned for it before it had probably half the features it's got now.

The time invested in the skinyourscreen.com family of websites has eaten into skinning time.  I hope you guys will forgive my apparent absence at times... I'm either busy skinning or focusing on my family and graduate research.  The skins site is still less than 40% complete in my mind... I'm trying to make individual article pages for each and every skin there at the moment, rather than just having a single article with a paragraph on each.  This will permit each skin to have its own associated comments.

There have been MANY times where I've debated retreating - killing all the mrbiotech email accounts and just forgetting about my published themes to spend my time in other matters.  No more maintenance, no more requests, but no more skinning.  As many times as I've tried, it just hasn't happened, though.  I'll be sifting through my graphics folder where I'm working on new recipes, techniques, and graphical projects and know with veritable certainty there's no way I can leave it behind.    I get graphical ideas and they have to manifest... it's almost as if I don't work on 'em, polish 'em and publish 'em that my brain will overload and explode.  Plus, there are so many fine people I've met through skinning, people I've gotten to know over years.  It's a good community, and I know there's no way I can abandon it.

So, for the time being at least, time is really short juggling so many tasks.  But, y'know, it's just so fun!

EDIT: - Fixed the borked link.  Thanks for the heads-up, Haxer!

kind of a cool link you've got there 


I don't know what any of us here would do if you did retreat. I know I would crawl into a small box somewhere and cry myself to eternal sleep...

Nah... you'd still make quality skins and post 'em at AstonShell's site or DevArt

I'm in this for the long-haul, better or worse.  I've made a commitment to keep everybody's work up as long as I can pay for it and keep it running (barring fundamentalist hackers, of course).